KRMG has been digging into a funding cut from the State of Oklahoma for crisis intervention services in Tulsa.
Oklahoma Mental Health Commissioner Allie Friesen sent a letter to Family and Children’s Services on March 19th informing them that two contract lines were being terminated.
One, totaling $1,682,300, was for the mental health agency’s Crisis Care Center, an inpatient care facility.
The second, totaling $895,000, was for the COPES program. COPES provides intervention for individuals in mental health crisis, such as having suicidal thoughts.
The letter informed FCS that funding for those programs would end April 17th.
KRMG has been in contact with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Family & Children’s Services, the City of Tulsa and others to understand the reasoning for the sudden cut and how it would impact services.
Before KRMG could publish this story with some of those answers, we received a major update from the ODMHSAS.
The statement reads, in part, “Family & Children’s Services had two separate contracts impacted. One was misclassified in our internal system, and upon discovery, we immediately contacted the CEO of FCS to acknowledge the error and collaborate on a solution. The second contract represented a duplicative service line that has since been consolidated under a fixed-rate contract to ensure continued payment. We are actively working with the City of Tulsa to ensure a smooth transition and renegotiations as needed for the next fiscal year.”
Late Thursday, KRMG received word from Family and Children’s Services that CEO Adam Andreassen was informed ODMHSAS had restored funding for COPES through the rest of the fiscal year.
“We are aware of the irony that, while we have been tasked with providing comfort and care to our community, we are uncertain ourselves, and our clients are now publicly uncertain about whether our services will remain at their present level.” An FCS statement posted online read.
This was a surprising turn of events, considering FCS said they were informed on March 27th that no money was available to restore either contract this fiscal year.
The ODMHSAS statement continued, “Following valuable feedback from both our partners at FCS and the SUD provider community, we quickly established connection points to better understand potential unintended consequences and adjust accordingly. ODMHSAS is actively working with the legislature and executive branch to determine next steps. All branches are aligned in our priority to serve Oklahomans, and we remain focused on sustaining services through strategic resource allocation, collaboration with key stakeholders, and ongoing evaluation of service needs.”
The City of Tulsa partners with FCS and COPES for the Alternative Response Teams, which pair paramedics with FCS licensed mental health professionals to respond to mental health emergencies.
Tulsa Public Safety Commissioner Laurel Roberts provided the following statement on that partnership.
“Family and Children Services (F&CS) has been a longstanding partner in the City’s work for decades. With the changing demands of society, F&CS has been an integral part of the City’s alternative response methods that are playing a vital role in improving mental health in Tulsa while also helping divert callers from the City’s 9-1-1 system. This year, F&CS’s COPES program has helped divert/triage more than 650 9-1-1 calls as part of their pilot program in the City’s 9-1-1 call center to help alleviate public safety resources. F&CS is also a vital partner in the Tulsa Fire Department’s Alternative Response Teams, the Tulsa Police Department’s Community Response Team, and other initiatives across the City. With that in mind, the City has been in discussions with State leaders regarding the real world impacts this funding gap will have in Tulsa. If funding is removed from these efforts, it will inhibit our ability to effectively help Tulsans in mental health crises and set Tulsa back decades at a time when we can’t afford to step back our efforts in this space.” Commissioner Roberts said.
In a release posted on the ODMHSAS website on Wednesday, the agency said it was working to “ensure fiscal responsibility and oversight of Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) following concerns about financial mismanagement and lack of transparency.”
“For too long, these entities have been allowed to grow and scale without the necessary accountability,” said ODMHSAS Commissioner Allie Friesen. “Oklahomans rely on these services, and we must ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly. Our goal is to bring immediate transparency to how CCBHCs operate and ensure they are truly benefiting the people they were designed to serve.”
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